Financial crises hits Dundee University after naira devaluation, visa restrictions

Nearly two years after the Nigerian government devalued the naira, the effect of the development has spread to the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom. 

Resignations rocked the university after an unforeseen £30 million black hole appeared in the accounts last autumn.

The Sunday Times reported that Shane O’Neill, the interim principal, blamed a portion of the problem on a “severe drop” in international student recruitment and the structural underfunding of higher education.

Other factors including alleged extravagant spending by the university’s senior staff, and allegations of financial mismanagement were also cited as reasons for the institution’s financial strain.

O’Neill was quoted as admitting that the scale of the deficit had been “lurking for quite a long time and has only just been fully understood”.

The university, which has been hard hit by the drop in foreign students, was said to have been generating nearly half a billion pounds annually for the city economy and three times as much for the UK economy — with about a third of its income from tuition fees.

External auditors have reportedly been recruited to identify what went wrong with the institution’s finances as the university announced plans to cut more than 600 jobs to tackle its financial crisis.

OTHER SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES ALSO AFFECTED

Some seven other Scottish universities have faced similar challenges.

The Sunday Times reported that staff at Edinburgh University have already been warned that “nothing is off the table” as the institution seeks to make urgent savings to fill its own £140 million financial black hole.

The UK economy which is largely dependent on its education sector began to witness the first sign of turbulence last February when Enroly, the online platform used to recruit foreign students, reported a 37 per cent drop in applications compared with the previous year.

Universities cited new government visa rules brought in to curb migration and the Nigerian currency crisis for the drop.

Previous data, The Times reported, showed Nigeria was providing more students than the EU countries combined at 33,000, but had fallen by 71 percent.

President Bola Tinubu devalued the naira in June, barely a month into his presidency.

His goal was to trigger an influx of foreign capital and eventually make Nigeria a more attractive investment destination.

The development saw the naira plummet against the US dollar from an average of N388/USD in January 2023 to over N1600/USD in August 2024.

The pound, which exchanged for the naira at N519 in late January 2023, spiked to over N2000/GBP in August 2024.

Education experts predicted UK universities heavily reliant on Nigerian entrants could face financial pressures due to the foreign exchange crisis.

Months before the forecast, some Nigerian students at Teesside University were ordered to leave the UK as they struggled to pay their tuition fees following the naira devaluation.

Other Nigerian students hit by the nosedive turned to charity homes for succour.